“The work is self-reflexive and somewhat autobiographical in nature and shows qualities that each woman, on each side of the camera, brings to it.”
Rania Matar is a Guggenheim 2018 Fellow.
She was born and raised in Lebanon and moved to the U.S. in 1984. Rania Matar's work has been widely published and exhibited in museums worldwide, including the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Carnegie Museum of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, and more. A mid-career retrospective of her work was recently on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, in a solo exhibition: In Her Image: Photographs by Rania Matar.
She has received several grants and awards including a 2022 Leica Women Foto Project Award, 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2017 Mellon Foundation artist-in-residency grant at the Gund Gallery at Kenyon College, 2011 Legacy Award at the Griffin Museum of Photography, 2021, 2011 and 2007 Massachusetts Cultural Council artist fellowships. In 2008 she was a finalist for the Foster Award at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, with an accompanying solo exhibition. Her work is in the permanent collections of several museums, institutions and private collections
worldwide.
She has published four books:
• SHE, 2021, essays by Orin Zahra and Mark Alice Durant.
• L'Enfant-Femme, 2016, with an introduction by Her Majesty Queen Noor, and essays by Lois Lowry and Kristen Gresh. Selected best photo book of 2016 by PDN Magazine and Foto Infinitum, and Staff Pick by the Christian Science Monitor.
• A Girl and Her Room, 2012, essays by Anne Tucker and Susan Minot. Selected best photo book of 2012 by PDN, Photo-Eye, British Journal of Photography, Feature Shoot and L'Oeil de la Photographie.
• Ordinary Lives, 2009, essay by Anthony Shadid. Selected a best photo book of 2009 by Photo-Eye.
She is currently associate professor of photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and regularly offers workshops, talks, class visits and lectures at museums, galleries, schools and colleges in the US and abroad.
Museum Collections:
American University of Beirut Museum, Beirut Lebanon
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth TX
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore MD
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland OH
Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Winter Park FL
Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham MA
Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley MA
DeCordova Museum & Sculpture Park, Lincoln MA
Eskenazi Museum of Art, Bloomington IN
Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg MA
Gund Gallery at Kenyon College, Gambier OH
Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville FL
Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston, Boston MA
Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg Germany
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles CA
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis MN
MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge MA
MSU Broad Museum, Lansing MI
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston MA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston TX
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City MO
Newport Art Museum, Newport RI
Portland Art Museum, Portland OR
Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL
Saradar Collection, Beirut Lebanon
Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach FL
Tufts University Permanent Art Collection, Medford MA
Worcester Museum of Art, Worcester MA